Hundreds of birds flock to Prima Deshecha Landfill, but a pair of falcons have other plans.

High over Prima Deshecha Landfill, hundreds of seagulls are soaring, looking for a chance to pounce on fresh heaps of table scraps dumped by garbage trucks.

Many of these hungry gulls are commuters from San Clemente and Dana Point.

Most of the time, they don't dare land. Falstaff and Boris won't let them.

Falstaff is a 6-year-old Saker falcon, Boris a 2-year-old Harris hawk. Adam Chavez, a master falconer from San Juan Capistrano, has trained his predators to harass seagulls, pigeons, blackbirds, sparrows, crows or any other birds that think of Prima Deshecha as a free lunch.

Every day in the hills behind San Clemente, a drama plays out as hungry birds flock to the trash heaps, expecting easy grub. This time, Chavez's predators are there to hold them at bay.

“There's birds that don't even get a bite in all day,” said Peter Marino, a falconer working with Adam's Falconry Service on a three-month, $36,444 experiment by Orange County Landfills. The goal is to bully the birds, scare the wits out of them, starve them out by making them spend hours burning too many calories and frustrate them into looking for friendlier skies elsewhere.

The county wants to reduce a bird population that has swelled while dining on endless feasts of leftover turkey, unfinished bags of Doritos, half-eaten hamburgers or rotting slices of pizza.

The birds include hundreds of pigeons that live beneath the deck of the San Clemente Pier and thousands of gulls that pollute Doheny State Beach and Poche Beach with droppings. The landfill is just a three-mile commute from Poche, slightly longer from Doheny or the San Clemente Pier.

Neighborhoods bordering the landfill can be repositories for fallout from the flying fast-fooders. “They'll grab trash and try to fly off with it,” Chavez said.

“I worked another landfill,” Marino said, “and people would find things in their swimming pools, in the backyard – chicken legs and ribs. That is what we are trying to avoid.”

Chavez, a 30-year falconer, said one falconer or two works 6:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. six days a week. The landfill is covered with a tarp one day a week, closed, and is tarped from the end of one workday to the next.

Falstaff will fly early to keep the earliest arrivals – the pigeons – away from breakfast.

Arriving gulls may number up to 5,000. Boris will be placed on a perch. “His presence alone keeps them out for a good majority of the time,” Chavez said, “but then they'll get really hungry and they'll press hard, like 11 or 12 (o'clock).”

“They're still around the boundaries, but they're not in our active fill area,” he said. “From seeing the falconers at work, I'd say it's very worthwhile.”

Seagull season at Prima Deshecha is October through March or April. Then most of the gulls migrate elsewhere, Dayak said. The county has budgeted $60,000 for bird control for the fiscal year that begins July 1. That would buy a limited program. Chay said the county will evaluate the experiment and decide what's needed next.